Vasu, Day 15

Gripping the rope inside his fist, Vasu pulled the buffalo near to the shed as it mooed, shaking its head and dancing its tongue out. He veered the animal until it settled in its little cement cubicle. The sight of the grass distracted it, and Vasu exhaled in relief.

"That was impressive," Suvarna yelled from the other end of the shed. She stood with one end of her saree tucked near her waist, her hands on her hips. She reminded him of Bhanu in the days of her cleaning Dwaraka whenever he would return for the holidays.

"Why? Do you think I am not strong enough?"

"Oh, you are strong, but I thought my buffalo would outsmart you."

"Yes, you believe in it more than me," Vasu said, stepping into the evening light. "I understood your intentions."

Suvarna laughed and hit him on his shoulder. The impact of her rough hand almost shook him.

'Ow.' He murmured to himself. But he didn't complain because after spending time in Dwaraka, any talking person would fascinate him. Ahalya spoke with him a few times, but that wasn't enough. Too many worries to stay quiet for a long time. And he couldn't figure out what happened to the three of them, how hard he tried. Yamuna was busy or acting as if she was busy. Vishwa stayed oblivious to everything except eating on time. The house was slowly metamorphosing into a rich historical prison.

"So what brought you to this old woman?" Suvarna asked. They walked together into her house through a side door.

"I am bored there," he said. The jumbled utensils and the smell of gas told him it was a kitchen.

"Of course, you are." Suvarna scoffed. "Four people live in a house that is meant for fifty. I never understood how Yamuna survived in that palace."

"You get used to it after a while, I guess," he said, absentminded.

"Do you want to eat anything?" She went into another room. Vasu could hear her footsteps thumping, harassing the floor and a husky opening of a fridge door and closing with a thud. The woman treated every human, machinery and the utensils like an animal. Cons of a good business perhaps, Vasu doubted.

"One of my animals had calved two days ago, and I made some Junnu," she said, shoving a steel bowl into his hands. It was too cold to hold, and he immediately dropped it on a shelf beside.

She was busy arranging things by her gas stove and his head full of sharp clinking of things.

He could see the layer of black pepper on the sweet and his mouth watered. The last time he ate Junnu was when Bhanu brought it to the hostel. She had come carrying a carriage full of home-cooked dinner, a new white shirt he demanded her to buy and one tiny box of Junnu. He had been playing cricket at the hostel's playground and came rushing to her, sweaty and agitated. He didn't remember what they talked about since he'd been keen to go back. His heart sat heavy in his chest for the memory as if the pain was turning it fat.

"Did the police find anything about her?"

He shook his head, leaning against a wall.

"If anything happens to her, I swear to god—"

"She might as well run away, leaving us," Vasu stated, interrupting her.

The dazed expression on Suvarna's face told him that his voice burst louder than he expected.

Suvarna grabbed a cloth, cleaned her hands and said, "So, you know about her pregnancy."

"The doctor told us, no thanks to him. Why didn't you tell me before?"

She shrugged. "I found out yesterday. I think the constable Varma has been telling everyone."

Vasu threw his hands in the air. "I don't understand," he shouted. "I don't understand the people's obsession with other people's lives here."

"Do you want me to mix something in the milk I supply to that Idiot Varma? I am telling you, no one would even doubt me."

He twisted back, gazing at Suvarna, who snatched a spoon and was reaching for Junnu.

"Stay away from my sweet." He slid the bowl away, stole the spoon from her and walked out, cutting a chunk of the sweet. It melted as he put it in his mouth. The sugary, lingering aftertaste forced him to swallow another spoonful, as he settled on a cement stair. He chewed a piece of pepper that stuck in his hind teeth.

The morning had been a rollercoaster for him when Ahalya walked in while he was making the final chart of his pathetic investigation. Sometimes, he guessed, maybe it was his coping mechanism, trying to figure out what happened instead of crying or crumbling into himself. It was better than doing nothing. He justified himself a million times.

Ahalya had come to ask if she could borrow one of Bhanu's sarees to blend in with village people.

"What are you doing?" She had stood at his door, two blouses in her hand, and stared at his wall full of papers.

He'd felt exposed and inferior like he was a cheap version of a detective, playing a game for fun.

"Nothing. Nothing. This is a time pass." He wished he had added something like 'it's personal' because that would stop people from prying.

But his time-pass comment had backfired, when she had ended up asking, "You are inquiring after your sister for time-pass?"

It had made him furious as he remained quiet, face-hot and humiliated and yelled, "I don't think the police are doing a good job."

Rather than hearing him reason,  Ahalya had charted her hand across the papers, an attentive expression replaced her surprised one, and spent the remaining time hearing his theories. The fact that she was showing interest had surprised him, which ended with him telling everything he had found out until then.

Although he was second-guessing about revealing to her, something told him this was too big for one person to handle.

After an hour-long discussion, they had ended up with five conclusions. He had them as a hunch ever since he knew about Bhanu's pregnancy (which didn't seem random at this point), but it was Ahalya who expressed them out loud.

1) Bhanu could've run away alone to escape the humiliation of her premarital pregnancy.

2) Or she could've eloped with this mysterious guy to start a new life and is waiting for time to make contact.

3) Or this same mysterious guy must've kidnapped her after he found out she's pregnant.

4) Or hopefully, she's been hiding from this mysterious guy, whom she thought could be dangerous.

5) Or a random stranger kidnapped her. This, though, seemed less plausible for Aranyavaram.

No one knew how much he prayed for the second reason to come true. A lesser hell, comparatively. Ahalya believed 1 and 3 might be possible too, though Vasu wouldn't expect them from his sister. Still, he agreed with her. Who knew how worse it was for Bhanu?

The dusk almost fell when Vasu realized he had been involuntarily licking the spoon. The bowl rested in his hands, empty. He needed to return to a place with no sound.

And that was when he picked a cry. A bellowing cry mixed with jumbled outbursts filled the air. He concentrated his ears to draw its direction. Suvarna hurried out, "What was that?"

Both of them entered the street. At one end, people were running in packs; men hailing their towels in the air and women screeching for the others. A girl was running toward them. Suvarna threw a hand, blocking her.

"What's happening, Latha?"

The eleven-year-old girl was panting, her nostrils flared, her two braids swung, and said, "Kalyani...fan...call the doctor..."

She made little sense, but before they confirmed she sprinted from under their hands.

Vasu only caught the word Kalyani. "How far is Kalyani's house?"

"Two streets away," she answered promptly.

He was about to dash, but Suvarna grabbed his hand.

"Not that way." She ushered him through a backdoor of a house. Its residents didn't mind. They passed three more backdoors of the neighbouring houses, to arrive at a narrow space, which might've been someone's backyard too. Vasu didn't lift his eyes off the ground and followed her blindly.

Crossing a T-junction later, they walked over a wide wooden plank that was placed as a bridge over a gutter. A street emerged and Suvarana rushed to the third house. Vasu understood why, since the cries got louder. Even with no wind to carry, they heard them, as if someone's pain was defying nature.

"This is Kalyani's house," Suvarna announced, reaching for a breath.

Together, they strolled via the backdoor that was under the shade of a thick Jasmine vine. And Vasu saw it. Two rooms away, but he could still see it. People were running in circles, grabbing its legs, trying to control the body from swinging.

Suvarna chanted, running inside. God, why, God, Kalyani, you mad girl, what have you done, joining the crowd outside.

Vasu led himself into the bedroom, where Kalyani's body hung down the fan. The rope was short and sturdy; her hands slouched to her sides. Trapped between the noose and the fan's motor, her neck sagged and crumpled like a waste paper.

A man dragged a stool nearby to bring the body down and the screech quivered Vasu's eardrum. He recognized the slight shimmer on her whitish face. Her nose ring. Above her falling out tongue, it shone in the light like a death's beacon.

Vasu's feet lost control, trembling and troubling to carry him. The mustard coloured top she wore highlighted her purple patches and mottled blue skin. He reached a wall nearby like the others who were struggling not to vomit.

They took down the body, and her head fell to a side as if the neck rejected to support it. The little girl, who raced to fetch the doctor, would be too late.

He could hear Kalyani's mother, Meenakshi, bawling outside the house while three people were attempting to control her. Soon, sweating people swamped the place, bringing unpleasant smells along. They put the body down and he kneeled at a distance, watching her. A gag shot from his stomach and he felt his pulse in the throat.

Why? He asked the body, his voice stifled.

Someone touched her head, and it bobbed to Vasu's side. Her eyes were red, bulging out of their sockets and he stared into them. Then he blinked and blinked until her face became a haze. Sometimes it veiled into Bhanu's face as the skin turned black.

A siren from an ambulance or the police jeep disturbed the dull air, and someone lifted Vasu by his shoulders, dragging him out. All the while, he wanted to go near her, pluck the nose ring out and she would seize his hand to say: Tell me everything. I do care. I want to know.

***

Notes: Junnu is a form of sweet made from the milk produced by buffaloes and cows immediately following delivery of the newborn.